Mark Pope was not willing to take the bait when asked about Kentucky‘s matchup vs. Louisville this weekend — his first as the head coach in Lexington. It’s not that he didn’t want to talk about Pat Kelsey or the Cardinals, an important game for everyone in the state and a rivalry he participated in personally as a player. He just didn’t want to talk about his excitement and how the team will prepare for the in-state battle yet.

As you can probably guess, it’s because Kentucky plays Colgate first, the Wildcats taking on the Raiders on Wednesday with tip-off scheduled for 8 p.m. ET. That’s the top priority until Thursday when the game prep can shift from this one to that one.

That was Pope’s approach when asked how he will be preparing his team for a rivalry game like Louisville during his call-in radio show. His answer was essentially a long-winded no-comment, saying the Wildcats will cross that bridge when they get there.

“Yeah, good question. We love these games, they’re really special,” he said. “One of the things that we do is we try and prepare the exact same for every single game. And so for us, one of the things that our guys are already repeating today is that on Wednesday night, we’re going to play the toughest game that we’ve played all season long against Colgate. We work really hard to treat it that way, to prepare that way. We understand, if you’ve watched the college landscape long enough, you know that any team can beat any other team on any given night. We understand that this Colgate team is going to come in here starving and hungry and have a chance to do something really special for themselves, to compete.

“So we’ll go through that game, and then we play Louisville on Saturday, and we’re going to prepare for that game, understanding that’s going to be the hardest game we’ve played all season long. And we stay really consistent with that. That’s really important to us. Hopefully we prepare for every game where we’re really pushing the needle as hard as we can to play great. So that’s what we do. We just prepare the same way for every game. I know that’s so boring and so cliche, but it also is winning. Cliches — I think a lot of times they’re cliches because they actually are true.”

Fair enough. If that approach isn’t broken, don’t fix it — and it’s clearly worked up to this point with the team 8-1 on the year while adding two top-10 wins. You aren’t ranked as the consensus No. 5 in the country by accident.

That doesn’t mean, though, fans were willing to let him off the hook about the Cardinals entirely. They simply rephrased their questions to pull some rivalry talk out of Pope.

How much do your guys know about the rivalry with Louisville?

“I think my guys have a sense of it, for sure,” he said. “With the exception of (Travis Perry) and Trent (Noah), none of them were raised with living through this Kentucky-Louisville vibe. In that sense, it’s new to them, but my guys will be ready. They care so much and they love prepping.”

Now we’re getting somewhere.

What was your favorite moment in the UK vs. UofL rivalry when you played for Rick Pitino?

“With the Louisville rivalry, it’s history,” Pope continued. “I don’t remember a lot about the games, I just remember being in Rupp and just feeling the energy in the gym. We had great matchups, that was when Samaki Walker was roaming around in the Cardinal red. They were really, really fun games, just with a ton of energy. But pretty much, I’ve tried to black out all of the things that we endured with Coach P and I’m saying that the most loving way possible, please understand that.”

Keep peeling back that onion, BBN. It’s working.

Then Pope started peeling those layers back himself, sharing the story of how he got to understand the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry. That came from none other than the late, great Bill Keightley — UK’s equipment manager for 48 years and Mr. Wildcat himself.

Well, it’s a story from Rick Pitino about Bill Keightley’s passion for the in-state rivalry and the emotions that come with it being around the program.

“The great Bill Keightley — one of one, the best ever. He welcomed Coach Pitino here and was one of Coach P’s trusted allies from day one,” Pope said. “I don’t know if it was five, six, seven games into the season, but they had a routine where when Coach sent the players out for the last time before a game, Bill Keightley would make sure Coach had all he needed and they’d walk out on the floor together. This is game five, six, seven, eight into the season and Coach P sends the team out, but there’s no Bill Keightley.

“‘Where is Bill Keightley?’ Coach is walking around the locker room, says, ‘We’ve got to go!’ He goes down the hall, finally goes to the showers and sees the great Wildcat Bill just sitting on the floor. He’s dressed in his suit, sitting on the floor. Tears streaming down his face with an open bottle of bourbon in his arms, just feeling the stress and pressure of this Kentucky-Louisville game. That’s when Coach Pitino was like, ‘This is different. This just means more.’”

He’ll learn all about it for the first time as a head coach this weekend — but not until the Wildcats take care of business against Colgate on Wednesday.